Lake Norman Real Estate’s 1st Quarter 2015 Home Sales by Price Range

If you are a home buyer or seller in the Lake Norman area it really only matters what is happening in YOUR price-range. Yes, it is important to know about the global economy, the national economy and the Charlotte area economy and real estate market but real estate is hyper-local so it is most meaningful to learn about the Lake Norman real estate market and within that, your specific niche. For instance, if you are looking to buy or sell in the $400,000 price range, you are going to have an entirely different experience than someone in the $500,000’s. This is the reason why I create a price-range analysis every quarter for my readers:

Lake Norman’s 1st Quarter 2015 Home Sales By Price Range

*Compiled from the Carolina Multiple Listing Service’s data, this chart enables you to focus on your specific price range(s) rather than use the broad-brush approach thus allowing you to size up your competition and better position yourself.

How to read this report:

First choose a price range.

The next column provides the actual number of listings sold in this price range in the 1st quarter of 2015

This is followed by the percentage this price range represents of the total number of listings sold in all of Lake Norman

Next is the number of active listings in this price range today

This is followed by the percentage this price range represents of the total number of active listings

Finally, the last column represent the absorption rate or the number of months of supply for each price range based upon the number of listings divided by the number of sales. (A balanced housing market is 6 – 8 months so you can use this to gauge your price range).

Our current inventory of 894 single family homes is well below not just last year but all previous years which is attributing to the trend towards a sellers market so early in the year.

Our strongest price ranges were those up to $300,000 which is typical but there was a dip in the next highest price ranges. All price ranges above $300,000 were clearly in a buyer’s market. However, we must take into consideration that the first quarter of any year is our weakest so by March we were really doing much better in the middle price ranges than this chart would suggest.

Our weakest price ranges by far were the luxury price ranges above $1,500,000. Also showing signs of exceptional weakness were the $500,000’s, $700,000’s, and $900,000’s.

If you compare this year to last year’s first quarter, the price ranges that stand out as particularly weak are also the $500,000’s, the $700,000’s, the $900,000 as well as the luxury homes above $1,500,000.

Comparing the overall numbers of this past quarter to 2014 we are clearly a LOT stronger in total sales and have far lower active listings for sale.

Overall, Lake Norman is in a seller’s market up to$300,000, and above that it slips into a buyers’ market.

Our luxury homes above $1 million represented only 6% of our sales and currently represent 16.1% of our active listings.

Lake Norman’s overall Months of Supply of active listings at the end of our 1st quarter 2015 was 6.79 compared to the 4th quarter 2014’s 6.89 our 3rd quarter 2014’s low of 6.79, the 2nd quarter’s 8.42 and our 1st quarter 2014’s 13.3.Clearly our low inventory and higher sales have already created a balanced market early in 2015 so I anticipate we will swing into a seller’s market in more price ranges as we hit our peak months.

To put this in historical perspective, in the 1st quarter of 2009 we had only 111 sales but 1546 active listings and a whopping 46.4 months of supply for all of Lake Norman!

As a buyer, the chart above will show you where you might face the stiffest competition and at what price ranges you might see opportunities. If you fall in the $450,000 – $550,000 price range you might want to look for opportunities in the 500,000’s where there are 38% fewer sales and a higher months of supply of active listings.

As a seller, you can look at the Lake Norman real estate market’s activity by price range and if you are right on the cusp of, for example, a $1,250,000 listing price, it would clearly be prudent to price your home under $1,250,000 where almost twice as many properties sold so more than likely more buyers are out looking.

One final caveat: Our Lake Norman real estate market is HOT right now so while these numbers are a good reflection of the past 3 months, you will need to adjust your process to our intensity of activity!

Questions about this report or the overall Lake Norman real estate market? Send me a quick email: diane@dianeaurit.com. Please note that in all of the price range charts I am actually using data from the 15th of the month so these numbers won’t match perfectly with the monthly or annual sales numbers I provide.